The Joker felt oddly at
home inside the Shrieking Shack. Decayed, old, and broken. Completely
and utterly neglected, even feared. An edifice and a legend at the
same time; created for the sole purpose of containing a monster.

The Joker's presence
didn't seem to change all that much.

Still, there was
something else about the house that made the ends of his mutilated
lips curl in appreciation. He closed his eyes and ran his gloved
hands over the dusty wooden surfaces. He sniffed the stale air. He
felt the cobwebs stick to his face as he walked through them.

A spider scurried
through his hair: matted and sticky with green paint and blood.

The Joker smiled and
giggled slightly. Everything felt so familiar…

He heard a rattling in
one of the rooms upstairs. The Joker's dark green eyes flashed open
with curiosity as he moved towards the stairs. He hummed as he traced
patterns in the dust on the handrail. The stairs cracked and wailed
under the pressure of his footfalls. The whole house seemed to
complain at his intrusion. The Joker giggled as he took the last
remaining stairs two at a time, nearly ripping the nule post out as
he got to the top.

He heard the rattle
again.

"Yoo-hoo…"
the Joker whispered, ending with a soft whistle. He then quickly
gnashed his teeth and smacked his lips.

He found the room where
the noise was coming from and opened the door to a long and loud
creaking sound. It was a bedroom, though it took some effort to
identify it as such. Much of the furniture was smashed and ripped,
evidence of one of Moony's transformations.

He heard the rattle
again and his eyes immediately flickered over to the large wardrobe
in the corner of the room. Its front mirror was smashed, the cracks
spidering out from the center. Huge slash marks covered its sides. It
leaned against the back wall at an angle, it's back right leg
snapped off. It shook slightly, rattling.

The Joker's eyebrows
shot up and he barked out a quick laugh. Capturing the boggart at
Grimmauld Place for his "present" to Hugo Weasley had robbed him
of his opportunity to confront one himself. He was curious to say the
least.

The Joker snapped his
gloved middle finger against the palm of his left leathered hand. The
handle of the wardrobe cracked open like a twig in the night. The
long creak was predictable…

The Joker giggled as he
watched the door slowly swing open. He truly was at a loss for what
might crawl out of that wardrobe; but he still longed to see
it.

Something flopped to
the floor, hard. It looked like a small mess of old rags, but it
moved. It shuffled slowly and shook. That's when the Joker heard a
sob. One sob followed another and another.

The Joker stiffened.
His smile vanished. His eyes darkened.

A small head of messy
black hair appeared. The Joker stared into the emerald green eyes of
his youth, of his innocence.

Tears were streaming
down his tiny face. He brought his arm up and wiped his nose on the
oversized sleeve of his raggedy shirt. He turned and looked at the
ground, searching with an outstretched hand and his squinting eyes
for his lost, broken glasses.

The Joker started
slowly walking to his left; circling the small boy.

The child found his
glasses just inside the entrance of the wardrobe. He wiped at his
eyes again, still weeping, and looked up at the Joker. Desperation
filled his gaze.

"P-please…"
cried the little boy with green eyes and messy black hair.
"Please…help me…" his voice barely above a
whisper, but filled with emotion. His small hand reached up and
rubbed his forehead; his scar.

The Joker continued to
pace, his expression betraying no sympathy for the boy. His lips
smacked as a low growl boiled up from his throat.

The child's cries
became more insistent, louder: "Please…I…I
can't…please…" He began to sob harder and his chin
burrowed into his chest as he winced from an unseen pain.

A fire began to dance
in the eyes of the Joker, and his blood-red lips twitched.

The Joker was on him in
a flash. He dropped to one knee as his left hand fisted that messy
black hair and pulled hard while his right hand gripped his throat
and chin. He gnashed his teeth and giggled.

"Ohhhh," he
said in fake voice of concern, "don't you like the box,
Harry?" His tongue danced over his yellow teeth; the mangled scars
of his cheeks being drawn to their limits.

The Joker could only
giggle as Harry responded only by closing his eyes and whimpering.

"Come now, Harry,"
the Joker admonished in a motherly tone even as he tightened his grip
on his throat, "surely you're stronger than that…" he
growled and clenched his teeth as the fire in his eyes blazed.

Boggart Harry was now
stiff and near catatonic; his eyes wide with fear, his breath quick
and harsh. An occasional tear escaped both eyes, running quickly over
his cold, pale skin.

"The box isn't so
bad, is it Harry?" The Joker asked tilting his head and smacking
his lips. "Though," his head tilted again, he closed his eyes and
began to nod his head vigorously, "I suppose I should know…"
he opened his eyes, and glared at the boy, shaking his small head
with his left hand still firmly embedded in his hair, "shouldn't
I, Harry?" Another growl rumbled from his throat.

The child's pupils
began to shrink.

The Joker pulled
"Harry's" head closer, his gaze boring into the boy's eyes.
He smiled slightly, but his eyes showed only madness.

"You left me in
that box…" His focus shifted wildly as he continuously
relaxed and reflexed his grip on his throat, "…didn't you,
Harry?" he asked in a voice just above a whisper. The sickening
scars seemed to draw blood as the Joker's smile threatened to
reopen the old wounds.

The Joker shifted his
legs so he was kneeling on both knees, pulling the boy up higher; too
high for him to kneel and too low for him to stand. He choked and
coughed against the gloved-iron grip around his throat.

"You…"
he gnashed his teeth and growled, "you… left me
there, Harry!" He giggled as he watched the boy's face begin
to redden and purple.

The stench of piss and
shit suddenly filled the Joker's nostrils. His cackling laughter
filled the shack.

"He-heee…But
I'm out now, Harry!" the Joker's eyes seemed to glow green.
"I'm out now, and I'm not going back…" he pulled the
boy closer until he was just an inch from his face, "I am
NEVER," he roared and shook with an intense rage, "EVER…going
back!"

The boy's eyes
widened and he struggled to shake his head. His lips moved,
struggling to mouth a muted "No". He was shivering in fear.

The Joker raised his
eyes in amusement: "'No?'" he asked disbelievingly as
he released his throat and rubbed his hand over the boy's forehead
and hair. "'No,' Harry?" His burning eyes never left
the boy. "Why not?" His hands were still trembling in a
rage that produced a tremor in his voice.

The fear was still in
the boy's eyes but a hint of stubbornness, of defiance was there as
well. He was still choking and coughing, but he managed to say,
"N-no…they'll…they'll see…"
Fresh tears. "They'll see…you…" Sob. "…they'll
see me…"

The Joker's giggles
built up into a crescendo of cackling laughter. "ARE
YOU—HAHA—ARE YOU STILL TRYING…" he could hardly control
his hysterics, "ARE YOU STILL TRYING TO SAVE
THEM, HARRY?" His eyes were wide with incredulity. His mouth
hung open with his smile. Tears threatened in the Joker's own eyes.
Not tears of joy, but tears of madness.

The boy's eyes were
begging, pleading. His breath seemed to catch in his throat. He
didn't need to say anything, though. His whole demeanor said it for
him:

Please…don't…

His eyes dropped and he
looked away before closing.

"Look at me, Harry,"
the Joker said as he gripped the boy's neck again.

The boy's eyes did
not open.

"LOOK--AT--ME!!!"
the clown roared and shook with rage.

Innocent green met
emerald fire. The Joker just grinned, but no joy shown in those eyes.
He answered Harry's unspoken plea with one of his own.

No…

The Joker gave a bark
of laughter and threw the boy down. He stood tall and turned his back
on the pathetic sight. He turned his back on Harry Potter.

"You always
were…destined…for Slytherin," the Joker stood stiff as
he licked his lips, "weren't you Harry?"

The boy looked down in
shame, he was no longer crying. He was out of tears.

"It was only today,
Harry," the Joker licked and smacked his lips, his eyes still
closed, "that I figured out what kind of snake you are…"

The boggart boy finally
looked up, his brow knit in confusion.

The Joker turned
slowly. His eyes opened; staring back into himself. He smiled.

Before the child could
blink, a massive hyena stood rigid before him, cackling ferociously…

Screams of terror and
unbearable pain soon mixed with the tearing, ripping, and ferocious
snarls of animal feeding to fill the Shrieking Shack with a symphony
of horror, violence, and death...

As the boggart morphed
back into the black, ink-like goo that constituted its true nature;
the Joker transformed back into the clown. He quickly stumbled and
vomited the thick black liquid all over the broken mirror of the
wardrobe.

He stepped back and saw
his own reflection. He spluttered—some of the goo still clinging to
his lips and chin—and began to laugh hard, so hard that he fell to
the ground in a pool of what was left of the boggart. He rolled with
laughter; whipping his hair.